New South Wales - Narooma to Coledale

Saturday 16.04.11

Ngarigo to Narooma – 280kms
Camped at Bodalla Forest Area

It was time to head for some sunshine and less than 1000 metres below sea level. I still needed to defrost a little…
As we were packing up we made it out of the camping area just in time – the ranger came in and our permit expired 24 hours ago hahaha!
More driving and reading…
Something weird we noticed immediately was there was warning signs on the road that told you that there was a speed camera coming up?? And sure enough, twenty metres past it is a little camera propped up on a pole. What is the point of that?? Surely there wouldn’t be anyone getting speeding tickets then? But hey this is NSW – and strange things happen in NSW…
I also discovered a fun new game, which involves me peeling a mandarin, bunching the skins into my hand and then squirting the citrus juice into Simon’s eyes. Fun times. We pulled into a rest area just past Narooma, hoping that we wouldn’t get mugged – the place looked pretty dodgy but there was so more expensive looking people staying there aka targets. We thought we would sit outside and enjoy the last little bit of sunshine, but no, the mosquitoes decided to be able to bite you through clothing so it was a mad slapping rush to get back into the caravan!
The sea was in our sights!!

Sunday 17.04.11

Narooma to Berry – 244kms
Camped at Berry Showgrounds

We were headed towards Jervis Bay – which we had heard was a really nice national park campground, especially a place called green patch. But as we pulled up we saw signs saying permits and different tickets were needed before entering through the gates. The wallet whimpered…
We sussed it out in the visitors centre and the guy told us – “Well its ten dollars for entry, and then where you camp you get showers and toilets and gas barbeques to use.” – yes okay. Possible $17 to $20 per night you would think??
“So its 40 dollars per car…” - !!!!!!!! – per night! The guy was even embarrassed to give us the price. 40 dollars per night for a patch of grass and some toilets!!! We politely thanked him for his time and gassed it outta there!!
We spotted a little town called Berry on the map, which was close to Seven Mile National Park along the coast. We thought that we mayhave better luck there instead… The towns main road is on the highway and my first reaction to it was it’s a little bit like the main stretch in Margaret river – only a lot smaller. There were HEAPS of people milling around and every kid attached to a scooter. We drove off the main stretch to the showgrounds and were pleasantly surprised to find that it cost FIFTEEN bucks per night INCLUDING power, water and toilets! Now that’s more like it! All the caravans were just parked on a little bit of an oval – very nice.
We did a little bit of grocery shopping – I was a little disappointed they didn’t have a whole section that contained every berry known to man – and managed to get some cheap as mussels to make chilli mussels for tea.

Monday 18.04.11

Camped at Berry Showgrounds

The sun is shining! It’s beach weather! We can sunbake! Woohooo!! Thankyou berry much!
We scoffed breakfast and drove straight down to the local surf spot, Shoalhaven heads. There were already a few people out on the point and some stragglers on the beach. All good signs. Simon was able to finally bring out his twin fin and give it some much needed water time. I was happy to strip off and soak up the sun on the beach. I even got chatted up by some surfer boys – doesn’t matter that they were all of about 14 years of age, and giggled hahaha still got it! As I was sitting on the beach I was very amused to watch all these little crabs around me keep darting out of little holes. One of them kept throwing some sand out of his, and then would have to throw some more out after I tapped it all back in. mwaaa hahaha!
We went back into town to check out this ‘world famous’ butcher who had supposedly won heaps of awards for his sausage – insert dirty remark here. We went in and got two of about six different kinds hahaha sausage madness! There was curry, duck and chives, beef and fetta, Italian deluxe – and so many other delicious combinations. No berry ones though…
At Port Kembla, which is directly south of Wollongong, Simon wanted to check out a hang gliding launch at the lookout so we ditched the boards at camp and went for a drive. We had another near death experience behind this psycho driver, who not only cut us off with less than a half a metres difference, but also was swerving all over the road into incoming traffic, missed a sign by millimetres, went through the tree behind it and then almost lost his ladder off the roof! Definite case of a food coma at the wheel – micro sleeps kill!! He eventually pulled over with about three of us flashing his lights at him. I could taste my heartbeat!
The site was pretty hairy – Simon changed his mind about going or flagging it about 5 times, after coming up with a different excuse not to fly each time. “Pussy!” I called him. “Right that’s it I’m going then!” he says, even getting as far as unzipping his HG bag. But some random dude on the top of the hill told us the landing was all weird – so the HG was put back onto the roof.
On the way back we thought we would stop in at this adult shop on the road for some cheap laughs – how is that the people that run these places are always older dudes, or chicks with piercings and tatts everywhere. This one young guy in there was extremely nervous, obviously a first timer, and I kept subconsciously moving close to him and he panicked and uncomfortably moved away. As we were leaving some older guy comes in and is greeted on a first name basis by the owner haha! Regular ay!
After all that excitement I insisted that we stop for ice-cream – strawberry flavour of course.

Tuesday 19.04.11

Berry to Coledale via Stanwell Park – 105kms
Camped at Coledale SLSC

Simone had another early surf at Shoalhaven this morning. I had some unfinished business with some crustaceans, who seemed to have multiplied in numbers overnight….
We packed up and went for a drive to Stanwell Park lookout, which is one of the best HG launches in Aus. Yep there are lots of them. But this place was actually quite cool – it was a massive steep climb top the top of a hill, with a grassed area which just dips suddenly and you get a cool view south down the beach, and the town area. There was tourists everywhere having picnics and taking photos. Some Japanese family thought it highly appropriate to yell at the top of their lungs down the hill. There was even HG information plaques along the ridge and a hang gliding mural on the toilets – you can imagine my excitement… K
The wind wasn’t good for flying though, so we drove back down the hill and checked out the surf which was pumping! There were tiny little kids out there ripping it up – was insane. This one little boy that got out with his dad would have been only 8 or 9 and the swell overhead 3ft. I was amazed by these young white haired sisters who were paddling out with their boards – no older than 11 and 14 years old!
We backtracked a little to find a camping area – we were a bit put off by the massive public signs listing about 15 things you weren’t allowed to do in at the park, camping included. But at Coledale, which is only like 9 kms south of Stanwell the surf life saving club has a grassed section of the beach, which they have set up as a mini caravan park. It’s pretty sick coz there is only like two rows of camp areas so you get your own little patch of grass and beach and can spread out heaps. We became friendly with an Irish couple from Dublin who were travelling around in their Mitsubishi van. Secretly we just wanted them to keep repeating ‘th’ – Perth is “Pert” hahaha.
We set up our bbq and had some sausies – berry good! And had a game of yahtzee while we watched the moon rise. But before long the game was ended with the dice being thrown and a bout of sore loser!

Wednesday 20.04.11

Camped at Coledale SLSC

We definitely looked the part of die-hard surfers when we were up early in our wetsuits jogging down with a twin fin and a long board this morning. There was a nice little beginner’s wave directly in front of our caravan. But somehow I always manage to duck dive the stupid board and gash open my ankles – this time the right one, so I swapped to my body board pretty quickly. We didn’t get out to the after breakfast influx of children crowded the water haha!
The rest of the arvo consisted of me setting up on the lawn with my paints and doing a few artistical creations and Simon watching HG videos. Dave the Irish came up for a bit of a chat, he was just learning to body board too and was loving the Australian coast. We planned on drinks later round the fire…
A Dutch couple pulled up in the arvo, more people to add to our bbq party. Jay or Jobbe (Yo-ba) couldn’t understand me when I asked if he wanted anything from the piss shop or bottle-o hahaha it wasn’t till I trying to signal drinking and alcohol that he understood what I was saying.
We ended up starting to drink at about 6pm, when the sun went down. ‘Toobesure’ or Irish, as we called them, didn’t rock up till seven ‘tirty’ with jeans and a flannel on. Their girlfriends came along too, so we had six people in total making a ruckus around the fire. Conversation mainly consisted of where we were heading, where we had been and giving the Irish shit for being Irish haha! I got an invite from Dutch Landers to come to a festival in Holland when I’m over in Europe.
It started raining so we put out the fire and all six of us crammed into the coromal – quite a snug fit – in which we proceeded to drink all the alcohol in the caravan and then pass out… good times with good company!

Thursday 21.04.11

Camped at Coledale SLSC

Oh god my head hearts! When you don’t drink for a while its not best to then drink gin, brandy, whiskey and champagne at excessive amounts. Everyone woke up in their camps fairly early and tried to wash the hang over away with a freezing swim in the ocean. All of us were supposed to be packing up ready to move on, but we managed to get an extra night out of the manager – (who forgot to grab an extra 22 bucks from us, score!) So thankfully I could stop my half assed efforts of packing up and go back to sleep. Needless to say we all had an early night that night…